“Yes, you seem to know,” she said; “in fact, I think you know too much, Mr. Collingwood. The mind of a well-informed man is a horrible thing. It is like a curiosity-shop, full of odds and ends which are of no use to anybody.”
“Answer her back,” said Arthur; “she won’t mind.”
Jack was sensible enough to know that Miss Fortescue could not be so rude, if her object was to be rude.
“If I had not been able to tell you about pearl-oysters and Cayenne-pepper,” he said, “you would only have said, ‘The mind of an ignorant man is a horrible thing. It is like a new jerry-built villa unfurnished.’”
“Just so,” said Miss Fortescue, “and the owner calls it a desirable mansion.”
“But what is one to do?” said Jack. “Either one knows about a thing or one does not. It is a choice between being a jerry-built villa or a curiosity-shop.”
“Some people,” said Miss Fortescue, “fill their villa with curiosities. It is possible to be well informed and completely uneducated.”
“Go it, Jack,” said Arthur; “she’s beginning to hit wildly.”
“Am I to apply that to myself?” asked Jack, turning to Miss Fortescue.
“Oh, that is so like an Englishman,” said she. “Whenever you suggest an idea to an Englishman he cannot consider it in the abstract; he has to think whether it applies to him.”
“Aunt Em never does that,” observed Jeannie; “she goes on the opposite tack. If you tell her she is being offensive, quite personally, she considers offensiveness in the abstract, and makes remarks about true courtesy.”
“Have some hare, Aunt Em?” said Arthur. “I shot it two days ago.”
“Did you kill it at once?” asked Miss Fortescue.
“No, I wounded it,” said Arthur, quite regardless of truth. “It screamed.”
“Shall I give you some?” repeated Arthur.
“But where is the proper mean, Miss Fortescue?” resumed Jack. “How can one avoid both being well informed and being ignorant?”
“Well-informed people are those who know about the wrong things,” she said.
“The Englishman again,” she said. “The Englishman abroad! How well that expresses the Englishman’s attitude toward ideas.”
“And the Englishman at home is the Englishman slaughtering innocent beasts, I suppose,” said Arthur. “I’ve only given you a very small piece, Aunt Em.”
“Yes, dear, you have taken me at my word,” said Miss Fortescue, inspecting her plate. “That is very English, too. We are the heaviest, most literal nation that ever disgraced this planet.”